Car blasts kill dozens in Syria's Homs

At least 25 killed and more than 100 others wounded in explosions that struck predominantly Alawite neighbourhood.

09 Apr 2014 19:35 GMT

Syria's protest movement has escalated into a civil war after the regime's devastating crackdown on dissent [Reuters]

Syria's state-run news agency says two car bombs have killed at least 25 people and wounded about 107 others in the central city of Homs.

SANA said Wednesday's blasts struck a busy street in Karam al-Luz district. It said the dead and wounded in the explosions included women and children, reported the AFP news agency.

The state news agency also reported that one car was parked near a sweets shop, and that half an hour later another car blew up.

"Twenty-five people fell as martyrs, including women and children, and more than 107 others were wounded after the explosion of the two car bombs" a half-hour apart, SANA said, according to AFP.

SANA said the wounded included its photographer in Homs, Syria's third-largest city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, also reported the bombings, saying they had been carried out in a mostly Alawite neighbourhood, referring to the Shia offshoot sect to which the family of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

Syria's uprising began as a series of peaceful protests against the Assad family's four-decade rule but escalated into an armed revolution after the regime launched a devastating crackdown on dissent.

More than 150,000 people have been killed since the protest movement began in March 2011 and nine million people have been displaced, including 2.6 million international refugees.

Homs was an epicentre of the revolt but is now almost entirely in regime hands, with small pockets of rebels holding out in besieged areas in and around the demolished Old City.